Sun Rain Chapter 24

The two of them went to the large apartment owned by the Fu family in the city center.

Stepping into the elevator, Fu Xuanliao finally remembered to ask, “Why did you go to Heting Club to wait for me?”

Shi Meng replied, “The light in your room wasn’t on.”

It took Fu Xuanliao a moment to connect going to Heting Club with the light in his room being off. He then asked, “Don’t you have to stay home for the New Year?”

He remembered that the Shi family, which had many rules, had to burn incense and worship ancestors early on the first day of the Lunar New Year, with the whole family present. It was only a few hours until dawn.

“No,” Shi Meng said. “I told Dad.”

Fu Xuanliao was somewhat surprised that Shi Huaiyi was so lenient with him.

“What about the cat?” Fu Xuanliao asked again.

Shi Meng replied, “I already fed it.”

As if afraid Fu Xuanliao wouldn’t believe him, Shi Meng took out his seldom-used phone, opened the album, and found a video. “I filmed this before I left.”

Fu Xuanliao leaned over to watch. The video was shot from a low angle, from the side and back. The sleek, glossy fur and the leisurely swinging tail in the frame proved that the domestic cat still had a good appetite after moving to its new home.

As he watched, his gaze involuntarily shifted to a pair of feet captured at the bottom of the video.

Only half of the feet were visible, bare of shoes or socks, with cold, pale skin, so thin that blue veins and bones were clearly visible.

Fu Xuanliao asked a non sequitur question: “What about you?”

Shi Meng’s eyes were still fixed on the video. “Huh?”

Just then, the elevator chimed, signaling their arrival, and the question “Did you eat?” which Fu Xuanliao almost asked, was swallowed back.

He was the first to step out of the car. The suit jacket he had taken off in the car was draped over his arm, and his steps were even a little hurried.

In the end, he still had to fix something to eat in the middle of the night.

Jiang Rong and Fu Qiming were already asleep, and ordering takeout on New Year’s Eve seemed inhumane. After careful consideration, Fu Xuanliao tiptoed into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and took out two packages of instant noodles and two eggs.

The instant noodles had been bought after Shi Meng’s last visit, when he ordered that massive takeout meal, and were meant for a quick late-night snack when no one was home.

This was the first time they were being used, though.

Although Fu Xuanliao wasn’t picky about food, he insisted that instant noodles tasted better boiled. He tossed two noodle blocks into cold water, poked them with chopsticks when they didn’t sink, added two bowls of water, put on the lid, and then started debating whether to add the seasoning packets now.

Shi Meng also entered the kitchen. Seeing the situation, he took two bowls out of the cabinet, placed them on the counter, snatched the seasoning packets from Fu Xuanliao’s hand, and swiftly tore them open, dumping all the contents into the pot.

Fu Xuanliao was speechless.

Shi Meng also took his chopsticks, stirred the contents of the pot, saw the two eggs sitting nearby, and tilted his head to ask, “How cooked?”

Fu Xuanliao was silent for a moment, then replied, “Medium-soft.”

From the moment the noodles went into the pot until they were served, only seven or eight minutes passed. Shi Meng had somehow managed to drop the eggs perfectly round, nestled on top of the noodles. When poked with a chopstick, the yolk flowed but wasn’t runny—a standard medium-soft.

The noodles were also cooked soft but not mushy. Fu Xuanliao finished his portion in a few quick bites and discovered a poached egg lying at the bottom of his soup.

Fu Xuanliao felt a sense of shame, like he had been treated with deference as a child. He asked the person sitting across the island counter, “Why did you give me both eggs?”

Shi Meng hadn’t finished eating yet and didn’t lift his eyes. “I don’t like eggs.”

…

That only intensified the feeling.

After the meal, Fu Xuanliao volunteered to wash the dishes.

Shi Meng left, looking back every few steps, seemingly worried about the safety of the dishes and chopsticks.

Feeling slightly annoyed, Fu Xuanliao’s movements were clumsy, and since he wasn’t good at this kind of chore to begin with, the kitchen was filled with clattering noises. This startled Jiang Rong, who had gotten up in the middle of the night for a drink of water. She walked to the kitchen doorway, saw who was inside, and sighed in relief.

“Why didn’t you wake me up if you were hungry?” Seeing Fu Xuanliao fumbling, Jiang Rong said helplessly, “Let me do it.”

Fu Xuanliao was almost finished, wiping a bowl with a dry cloth. “It’s fine, I’m almost done.”

Seeing two bowls and two pairs of chopsticks, Jiang Rong realized there was someone else in the house. “Did Gao Lecheng come over?”

“No,” Fu Xuanliao denied, but didn’t say who it was.

She peered out of the kitchen and saw the light on in the innermost bedroom, and Jiang Rong understood.

While helping put the dishes back in their place, she said, “Shi Meng rarely comes to our house, and you treat him to instant noodles?”

“I was the one who wanted to eat; he just had a taste,” Fu Xuanliao didn’t want to explain further. “I didn’t plan on bringing him back here.”

Jiang Rong was silent for a moment, then spoke in a lower voice, “Although he used some inappropriate methods back then, I can see that you aren’t completely indifferent to him…”

“Indifferent to what?” Not wanting to hear the rest, Fu Xuanliao played dumb. “I really ran into him on the road; it wasn’t planned.”

With that interruption, Jiang Rong couldn’t continue.

She sighed softly but didn’t press the issue, only instructing, “It’s the New Year. Treat him well.”

Walking to the bedroom door, Fu Xuanliao could faintly hear voices coming from inside.

He pushed the door open and saw Shi Meng sitting at the window table with his back to the door. Hearing the movement, Shi Meng turned around, and before Fu Xuanliao could speak, he put his index finger to his lips, making a shushing gesture.

Fu Xuanliao thought, Great, I can’t even make a sound in my own home.

He complained internally but still closed his mouth, trying to keep his footsteps light.

Shi Meng turned back, holding his phone and continuing the video call.

“It’s the New Year, why aren’t you staying home? Where did you run off to?” The woman’s voice on the phone was sharp and the tone unfriendly.

“At a friend’s house,” Shi Meng said.

“Then where is my Mu Mu?”

“I fed him before I came out.”

“Leaving Mu Mu alone at home…” The woman on the phone scoffed. “How come I never heard you had friends?”

Shi Meng didn’t know how to answer and lowered his eyes, remaining silent.

In just a few short sentences, Fu Xuanliao figured out that the middle-aged woman on the other end of the video was Shi Meng’s mother, Yang Youlan, whom he had met briefly many years ago.

“Ah, never mind, never mind. You’re like a stick in the mud, can’t get a word out of you.” After asking about the cat, Yang Youlan lost patience. “I’m going to sleep now. I have to get up early tomorrow to rush to the next stop.”

Before Shi Meng could say “bye,” the other side hung up the video call.

The room was silent for a few seconds. Fu Xuanliao chuckled. “Are you really their biological child?”

Shi Meng didn’t turn around, sitting stiffly with his neck rigid, looking angry.

Thinking it was the New Year, Fu Xuanliao felt a pang of sympathy and changed his wording. “I mean, you and your mother… you don’t seem very alike.”

Two minutes later, Shi Meng slowly turned around in the swivel chair. He still looked unhappy, but his expression had relaxed considerably.

He looked at Fu Xuanliao and said very seriously, “I don’t resemble anyone.”

Shi Meng, who truly didn’t resemble anyone and whose personality was unique and unconventional, bit Fu Xuanliao again during their first intimacy of the new year.

A metallic taste of blood spread in his mouth. Fu Xuanliao gasped and tilted Shi Meng’s chin up. “You’re the one who seduced me, and you’re the one who bit me. Can’t you be more well-behaved on New Year’s?”

Shi Meng’s eyes curved as he retorted, “This isn’t seduction.”

Fu Xuanliao rubbed his wet, soft lips with his thumb. “Then what is it?”

“Taking,” Shi Meng said. “I want it, so you give it to me.”

Applying heavy pressure with his palm, Fu Xuanliao asked, “What if I don’t want to give it?”

Shi Meng’s eyes suddenly turned cold, and his smile vanished. “Then that’s breaking the rules.”

The rules included the contract that had not yet been terminated.

And disrupting the rules required paying a price.

Fu Xuanliao was an extremely proud person, and having been repeatedly frustrated by Shi Meng, he had long accumulated suppressed anger. Now that Shi Meng was provoking him, he naturally couldn’t tolerate it, and his actions became increasingly fierce.

Shi Meng bit his lip, enduring, with occasional moans escaping his throat—whether of pain or pleasure—acting like a catalyst that spurred every restless nerve in Fu Xuanliao’s body.

Lust and violence intertwined harmoniously, and a hot current surged through the chilly winter night. Near the end, Shi Meng propped up his limp body, wrapped his arms around Fu Xuanliao’s neck, and leaned in to kiss him. The scent of blood passed from his mouth in thin wisps.

Reaching the peak during a violent collision, Shi Meng arched his neck, his pupils dilated as he stared blankly at the ceiling.

It hurt, but he wasn’t cold anymore.

One packet of instant noodles was nowhere near enough to compensate for the energy expended in such an activity.

Around three in the morning, the two of them went back to the kitchen, pulling out a roll of dried noodles, two tomatoes, and the last egg from the refrigerator.

Fu Xuanliao declared first, “You eat this egg. I’ve already had two.”

Shi Meng neither agreed nor refused. He skillfully cracked the egg one-handed on the edge of the pot, and the yolk and white plopped into the boiling water.

Fu Xuanliao, whose mood had improved after the release, watched with interest. “Do you cook noodles often? Your technique is so practiced.”

Shi Meng hummed in affirmation.

Fu Xuanliao still didn’t understand. “Don’t you have an auntie at home? Do you need to cook for yourself?”

Shi Meng, who found it hard to multitask when focused on a task, only shifted his gaze from the pot to Fu Xuanliao’s face after calculating the precise moment the yolk would be cooked.

His expression was calm, merely stating a fact: “Before I was eight, I cooked for myself.”

That was right. Before the age of eight, Shi Meng wasn’t with the Shi family.

That year, Fu Xuanliao was ten, and when he first saw the thin, short Shi Meng, who looked like a bean sprout, he couldn’t believe he was the same age as Shi Mu.

Eight-year-old Shi Mu attended the best primary school in Fengcheng, participated in overseas winter and summer camps that cost hundreds of thousands in registration fees annually, and his hobbies included playing soccer and horseback riding. His father hired a retired athlete from a famous foreign team as his private coach, and his mother carefully selected a reddish-brown pony at the stable, just so he could ride it for two hours every month when he had time.

Fu Xuanliao was the same when he was little—one moment learning piano, the next tinkering with robots. He didn’t stick with anything for long, but no one criticized him. It was just considered cultivating interests; they were born with plenty of opportunities for trial and error.

But the period before Shi Meng was eight remained a blind spot for Fu Xuanliao, as Shi Meng never mentioned his past experiences to anyone.

Having been negligent in observation before, now that he thought back, many of Shi Meng’s subconscious reactions proved one thing—he hadn’t had a good life before he was eight.

At least when other children weren’t worried about food and warmth, nestled in their parents’ arms and freely demanding affection, he hadn’t received adequate care and protection. This led him to habitually make his own decisions and solve everything himself, making him so calm and independent that he seemed somewhat inhuman.

Fu Xuanliao, who once again excavated a poached egg at the bottom of his bowl, said, “…Aren’t you worried about my cholesterol?”

Shi Meng picked up a mouthful of noodles with his chopsticks. “Three isn’t many.”

Fu Xuanliao was speechless, yet found it amusing. The slight sympathy that had just surfaced in his heart was immediately suppressed.

The pitiful one was the defenseless child, not the person in front of him who was ruthlessly using every means to satisfy his own desires.

He asked Shi Meng, “So, the so-called rules you just mentioned, are they all set by you?”

Shi Meng raised his face.

“You want what you want, and you have to get it. You want to give something, whether good or bad, and you force it into someone else’s hands.” Fu Xuanliao smiled. “No wonder everyone is afraid of you and wants to stay far away.”

After all, he wasn’t just inhuman; he was utterly unscrupulous.

Shi Meng quickly stood up. “You want to leave me?”

Fu Xuanliao put down his chopsticks and looked up at him. “Do you think I want to?”

Shi Meng recalled the question he had posed at the entrance of Heting Club a few hours ago—Do you wish I were?

The answer to that question was uncertain, but the answer to this one was almost certain.

Everyone wants to stay far away from me, Shi Meng thought. Everyone.

But why?

Shi Meng felt confused and began to trace back his memories, trying to find the root of the problem.

As if sensing what he was thinking, Fu Xuanliao leaned forward, the half-width of the island counter separating them.

Then he tilted his head, pressed close to Shi Meng’s ear, and coldly questioned, “Besides stealing someone else’s work, have you forgotten what other insane things you’ve done?”

“No, I didn’t…”

Halfway through his denial, Shi Meng’s eyes suddenly widened.

With no one mentioning it all these years, he had almost forgotten that night of torrential rain four years ago.